The Case for Non-Fiction by Dan Nunn
In today’s guest blog, education publisher and author Dan Nunn makes a strong case for the role and continuing importance of non-fiction books in school for young readers. Dan is the Senior Content Strategist, International for Raintree Publishing, whose latest book, Exploring Canals (Raintree, 2020) was inspired by his own son’s interest in the subject.
The Case for Non-fiction
Sometimes non-fiction seems to get a bad press (no pun intended). Many public libraries allocate only about 10% of their children’s budgets to buying non-fiction, and at a recent reading conference while manning the Raintree Publishers stand I spoke to one teacher who said that at their school a decision had been taken to remove all non-fiction from the library altogether. [Cue non-fiction publisher nearly fainting with shock at the horror of it all!
But as a long-time member of the publishing team at Raintree, whose company motto until recently was “Reading is for Everyone”, I’d like to take this opportunity to put the case for non-fiction.
“I don’t need to buy non-fiction books. My students can just do all their non-fiction reading online!” I hear you cry. Well, yes, it’s true that there are some great online resources for younger readers out there, both paid-for and free. But there are also plenty of terrible websites out there. Some are badly put together or written at completely the wrong level for younger readers. Others may have content, or links to other websites, that are inappropriate for children. And some may have ‘facts’ that are just plain wrong!
For example, some famous Wikipedia falsehoods in the past have included the useful information that David Beckham was a Chinese goalkeeper in the 18th century, that Lady Gaga is “the artist formally known as Madonna”, and that a lunar eclipse is “when the moon turns black and explodes, releasing a poisonous gas, killing all humanity”. Ironically I just googled “famous Wikipedia errors” and found these on random websites, so these examples may or may not have actually happened.
When you buy a children’s non-fiction book from a reputable publisher, on the other hand, the text will have been carefully written by either a subject specialist or a professional children’s non-fiction author. It will have been meticulously checked by an editor to ensure the language is appropriate, the facts are accurate, and that there are no mistakes in the text. The pages will have been put together by a designer taking great care to ensure each spread is visually appealing and that the various elements that make up each page are put together in a way that won’t be confusing. Photographs will have been researched by a professional picture researcher to ensure that the images are actually showing what the text says they are. Beautiful illustrations will have been sourced from some of the world’s most creative and talented children’s illustrators. And, depending on the subject of the book, the content may have been reviewed by sensitivity readers, subject experts and/or literacy consultants to make sure that everything is just right.
The second reason why all schools and libraries should maintain a healthy selection of non-fiction books is that reading non-fiction is such a valuable life skill. The skills of using non-fiction tools such as contents pages, indexes and glossary terms, of scanning pages to quickly extract the required information, and of reading longer, more complicated texts in full to gain deeper understanding of a particular subject will all be absolutely critical as children progress first through the education system and then into adult life – whether they are tackling monographs or scholarly articles in the university library, or just trying to decipher an instruction manual or a printed bus timetable on the way to work.
But perhaps the biggest reason why stocking non-fiction is so important is this: the fact is that some children actually prefer reading non-fiction to fiction, and if you really want to make sure that all children develop a life-long love of reading, the best way to do this is to ensure that every young reader has access to a wide range of books that they actually want to read. So while for many that may be a graphic novel or the latest David Walliams book, for others it could be a book on worms or volcanoes or narrowboats or polar bears or… the list is endless!
So next time you are stocking up your library or seeking out the perfect book for a particularly reluctant reader, please don’t skip past the non-fiction section of the catalogue too quickly and instead take a second look, as I guarantee you will have readers that would love to read them and who would otherwise miss out!
Dan Nunn, Raintree Publishers
Polar Bear vs Orca (Predator vs Predator) by Lisa M Bolt Simons, Capstone Global Library, 2022.